


Wolfwrath

by Elviah



Series: Arrowverse [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elviah/pseuds/Elviah
Summary: Avery York is the 24yr old roommate of Caitlin Snow. She is a zoologist at the zoo and doesn't spend much time at Star Labs since she isn't all that interested in it. Avery is at the zoo when the particle accelerator explodes, and wakes up in Starling City three days later. It isn't until Caitlin brings her back to Star Labs that Avery discovers she now has the ability to shapeshift into a wolf.





	Wolfwrath

_What is that stench?_  
  
Avery groaned quietly, slowly opening her eyes to the sounds of a city. Every muscle in her body ached as she shifted her legs into a slightly less awkward seated position. She looked around, blinking the sunlight from her eyes as she took her in surroundings. She was sitting back against a garbage disposal in some back alley off the main street of the city. There was just one problem. This was not _her_ city.   
  
“Wh-where am I?” Avery mumbled, her words heavily slurred.   
  
Her head was pounding, and it wasn’t until words were spoken that she realized how horrible her stomach felt. It was like some nasty critter had crawled inside and scratched up her insides. Another wave of that reeking smell wafted up her nose, and Avery couldn’t stop herself from rolling over to the side and hurling. The contents of her stomach weren’t even recognizable, and it took a moment for her to regain some smidgeon of composure. She groaned again, pulling her body back up to lean against the large metal bin.   
  
_What happened?_  
  
A rickety door slammed. Avery looked to her right to see an older gentleman, who was wearing glasses and an apron, come outside with a garbage bag in his hand. He stopped upon seeing her and dropped the bag on the concrete.   
  
“Aye there miss, what are you doing back ‘ere?” he asked in a thick Scottish accent, looking her up and down.   
  
Avery blinked hard, trying to figure out if she knew this man. He didn’t look familiar at all.   
  
“I…I don’t know,” she stammered.   
  
After another moment, Avery noticed there was garbage strewn everywhere. That was the source of the smell. Looking down at herself, she groaned with disgust as she pulled a grimy napkin off the front of her shirt. Tossing it to the side, Avery swallowed hard.  
  
“I don’t even know where I am.”   
  
The gentleman wiped his hands on the front of his apron as he let out an exasperated sigh. In his mind, she was just another drunkard that had passed out behind his shop.  
  
“You are in Starling City, miss, behind the alleyway of Gavin’s Goodies.”  
  
Avery pulled her knees in, relying heavily on the garbage bin for support as she pushed herself to her feet. As soon as the man spoke, however, she froze.   
  
“I’m sorry, did you just say I’m in _Starling_ City?” she blurted out, not even hearing the second part of his sentence.   
  
The gentleman eyed her dubiously. “Aye, that’s what I said,” he said slowly, surprised by such a reaction.   
  
Avery’s jaw dropped.   
  
“How in the hell?” she muttered in confusion.   
  
This was not right. How could she have ended up here? Was she kidnapped?   
  
“This is – that - that’s not possible. I don’t live anywhere near here,” Avery stuttered as she stumbled over to the sidewalk to look around.   
  
Sure enough, there was the Queen Consolidated building a few blocks down the street. The gentleman approached her carefully, shifting on his feet as he looked at her with concern and mild curiosity.   
  
“Where are you from then?” he asked.   
  
“I live in Central City,” Avery answered, not noticing the man’s eyes bulge with shock. “I-I was just there last night when the particle accelerator exploded, but Central City is over 600 miles away, so how…did I get _here_?”   
  
The man’s brow furrowed as he spoke with a suspicious tone.   
  
“That explosion was three days ago.”   
  
Avery flinched.  
  
“Three days ago? Are you sure?”   
  
“Aye. It’s still on all the news channels.”   
  
Avery’s breathing quickened. Three full days had passed. How? She stumbled backwards, collapsing against the brick wall of the alleyway with trembling hands. Her face had paled considerably.   
  
“Miss? You alright?” the gentleman asked with worry.   
  
Avery shook her head as she struggled to contain her panic.   
  
“S-something’s wrong. I don’t know” – she looked directly into the man’s troubled gaze – “I need you to call the cops. Now.”   
  
“Aye, miss, I’ll do that.”   
  
He hurried back into his shop, letting the door slam shut behind him.  
  
Now that she was alone, Avery started to wrack her brain for answers. There was no way she could’ve gone from Central City to Starling City without knowing. Something else must be going on, but she had no answers as to what that could be.   
  
_What happened?_

* * *

It only took ten minutes before SCPD showed up at the alleyway with an ambulance in tow. Avery was still sitting against the brick wall, her arms wrapped around her knees as she tried to make sense of it all. Even with her body curled up tight, her whole frame was trembling.   
  
The one that approached her first was not wearing a typical policeman uniform. The suit jacket indicated he was higher ranked, and he had dark tussled hair and a cleanly shaven five o’clock shadow.   
  
“Avery York?”   
  
She looked up, nodding silently.   
  
“I’m Detective Lance. Turns out you’ve got some people who are really worried about you. The CCPD put out a missing person’s report two days ago after your roommate called in that you were MIA.”   
  
“Caitlin,” Avery said breathlessly.   
  
Quentin reached out a hand and helped pulled Avery to her feet.   
  
“Yea, a Miss Dr. Snow, if I remember correct.”   
  
“That’s her,” Avery confirmed.   
  
“Right,” Lance said warily, eyeing her suspiciously. “You want to tell me how a young girl like you disappears from Central City and just shows up in Starling three days later?”   
  
Avery shook her head. “That’s just it, Detective. I don’t remember. Anything,” she explained as she struggled to keep her voice steady. “The last thing I remember was jotting down notes about Ruthie at the zoo. She’s one of our new gray wolves at the exhibit, and I’ve been making sure she transitions smoothly.”   
  
“So you have no idea how you got here?” Quentin asked incredulously. “None?”   
  
“No…” Avery admitted. “I woke up in this alleyway feeling sick as a dog.”   
  
Quentin sighed, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Alright. Well, no one was hurt and nothing was destroyed, so I have no reason to arrest you. If you remember anything, let CCPD know and they’ll give us a call. The docs here just have to do a quick check to make sure you’re clean.”   
  
“Thank you, Detective.”   
  
One of the doctors that had been hovering by the ambulance guided Avery to the vehicle. As soon as they finished drawing blood for a drug test, she bolted away and pulled her cell phone from her pocket.   
  
It hadn’t even finished the first ring.   
  
“Avery! Where have you been? I’ve been so worried!”   
  
“It’s a long story Cait. I – I woke up in Starling City this morning.”   
  
“You what? That’s almost 600 miles away. How did you get there?”   
  
“I don’t know. The last thing I remember is being at the zoo with Ruthie. Look, I gotta go, I have to find a way home.”   
  
“I’ll tell Cisco and Doctor Wells what happened. Be safe, Avery.”   
  
“Thanks Caitlin, I’ll see you soon.” 

* * *

After a brief discussion with Detective Lance, SCPD and CCPD each sent a patrol to meet halfway to help Avery get back home. It was another fifteen hours before she was once again in her shared apartment with Caitlin Snow, and when she got back, she promptly passed out for the next twelve.  
  
The following morning, Avery was awoken by the aromas of coffee, scrambled eggs, and breakfast sausages. The smells seemed to fill the entire apartment as she dragged herself out of bed and into the bathroom to relieve herself before going to the kitchen wearing nothing but a bathrobe.   
  
“Avery!” Caitlin yelped in surprise, turning her back to her roommate. “Will you please tie your robe up so you’re not flashing everyone outside our windows?”   
  
Avery glanced down and felt her cheeks flush red as she realized she was fully exposed. This was a first.   
  
“Oops. I must’ve forgotten to put on pj’s before I fell asleep,” she muttered apologetically, tying the sash tight.   
  
She shuffled to the table where the steaming food sat waiting and slid into a chair. Caitlin sat down across from her, wearing grey polka dot pajamas. Despite the loud grumble of her stomach, Avery was mildly surprised that nothing on the table looked appetizing to her except the sausages. She forked four of them onto her plate, and then took a rather small helping of eggs to be polite, though she didn’t intend on eating them.   
  
“Avery,” Caitlin said slowly.   
  
Avery looked up, surprised to see a very confused expression on her roommate’s face.   
  
“What?”   
  
Caitlin’s mouth gaped like a fish as she stared at the sausages on the plate.   
  
“Aren’t you…a vegetarian?” she asked.   
  
Avery paused, looking down at her food and back up at Caitlin a couple times before setting the plate on the table. Caitlin was right. She had been a vegetarian for as long as she could remember. So why were breakfast sausages suddenly so appealing to her? She stared at the one sitting on the end of her fork.  
  
“I…used to be? I guess?” She shrugged. “I don’t know, they just smell so good right now.”   
  
Caitlin sat there, staring at her with a dumbfounded expression. Her own helping of eggs sat untouched.   
  
“Avery, people don’t just stop being vegetarian’s overnight. What is going on?”   
  
“I have no idea, Cait.”   
  
Avery scarfed down the next three sausages in a matter of minutes before putting her fork down. She gave an astonished Caitlin a hard look as she threw her hands in the air.   
  
“I don’t have a single memory of the last three days. I apparently slept naked, and I just ate meat for the first time in 19 years. I have no idea what the hell is going on in my life right now.”   
  
Caitlin was quiet for a moment, and just as it appeared she was going to say something, she merely shook her head and sipped her coffee. Avery’s brow furrowed.   
  
“Caitlin,” she ground out. “What are you not telling me?”   
  
Her roommate sighed as she set the mug back on the table.   
  
“I was hoping this was just a coincidence, but now I’m not sure,” Caitlin admitted.   
  
Avery raised a brow, slowly circling a finger in the air to encourage her to continue. Caitlin lifted her gaze and spoke hesitantly.   
  
“The wolf you were citing the night of the particle accelerator explosion – Ruthie.”   
  
“Yea? What about her?”   
  
“She disappeared that night too.”   
  
Avery slowly set her cup down with a soft thud.   
  
“What are you saying?”   
  
“I’m saying I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you both disappeared on the same night, and then you suddenly show up in Starling City three days later,” Caitlin explained.   
  
Avery scoffed quietly. “You know what you’re suggesting sounds absolutely insane, right?”   
  
Caitlin merely shrugged. Avery shook her head as she exhaled slowly.   
  
“What do you suggest we do?”   
  
“We need to go to Star Labs so I can run some tests. As crazy as it sounds in my head, I might have a theory for what happened.” 

* * *

“Hang on. We are testing _what_ exactly?” Cisco asked, both of his hands in front of his chest defensively.   
  
He stood in the middle of the Star Labs third floor bay with Caitlin and Avery in front of the elevator door. Dr. Wells was still too busy dealing with the local media stations to come back into the facility, which gave Caitlin a chance to bring Avery in unquestioned. All that was left was to convince Cisco to help them solve their mystery.   
  
Caitlin sighed, trying to make herself sound convincing.   
  
“I think Avery and Ruthie merged into one body but are still operating with two different minds.”   
  
Cisco raised a brow at her.   
  
“You know that sounds absolutely insane, right?”   
  
“No, what’s insane is the fact that I ate seven sausages this morning without remorse,” Avery cut in.   
  
The look on Cisco’s face could’ve been a poster for a Scream movie. If she wasn’t feeling so uncomfortable with herself, Avery would’ve laughed.   
  
“You _ate meat_?” he exclaimed. “You – you’ve been a vegetarian since – since –”  
  
“Since forever, Cisco” – Avery shuffled on her feet – “which is why I think Caitlin is right.”   
  
The girls stood there waiting for an answer as Cisco spun in circles a few times, exhaling loudly.   
  
“Ohh boy, ok, we are going to need something to look for first,” he reconciled.   
  
“I can already confirm her behavior has changed,” Caitlin piped up. “We need to scan for changes in brain activity and any unusual molecular mutations.”   
  
Cisco shrugged. “Alright then, let’s get to it.”   
  
The three of them went down the curved hallway into the main room containing the three computer monitors and two lab rooms.   
  
“Um, guys?”   
  
Caitlin and Cisco both looked over at Avery.   
  
“Maybe we should find an empty room for me,” she suggested.   
  
The two of them exchanged a confused glance.   
  
“What for?” Caitlin asked.   
  
“Cait, if you’re right, and I do have a wolf living in my head somewhere, I don’t exactly want her getting loose again,” Avery stated.   
  
Cisco nodded. “Good call. This way ladies!” he declared as he marched back out into the hall and turned left.   
  
The trio went into the main medical facility, and Avery stopped in the room as she noticed a few major changes. A fresh white gurney sat in the corner with various bits of medical equipment surrounding it.   
  
“What’s going on? You guys look like you’re expecting someone in here,” she asked, eyeing the setup warily.   
  
“I’m not sure. Dr. Wells had me set it up a couple days ago as a way to distract me from your disappearance,” Caitlin answered.   
  
It seemed odd to Avery, but she shrugged it off and followed Cisco to a large bay window. On the other side appeared to be nothing but a large empty room. Avery knew better. It was equipped with all sorts of devices on the walls and ceilings that were controlled by the consoles on the floor in front of where she stood.   
  
“So” – she turned to Cisco – “what’s the plan?”   
  
“You go in there. I work my magic from out here. We see if we can figure out if you’re possessed by a feral canine or not,” he stated with a teasing glint in his eye.   
  
Avery nodded. “Alright then. Let’s get this over with.”   
  
She went into the room alone. The door clicked as Caitlin locked it behind her, and Avery walked over to the center where she could see them on the other side of the window. It was so…quiet in here. An irritating buzzing suddenly filled her ears, and Avery groaned quietly, looking around for the source. At first, she saw nothing. A wisp of movement by the ceiling caught her eye, and she looked up to see a tiny fly…on the other side of the room. Avery’s brow furrowed.   
  
_I heard that from all the way over here?_  
  
Her thoughts were interrupted by Cisco’s voice in the loudspeaker.   
  
“This will be fairly simple, Avery. You just gotta hangout in there for a while, and Caitlin and I will be looking for certain things on the scanners out here.”   
  
“How long is a while?” Avery called out, traces of anxiety in her voice.   
  
“We don’t know. It could be a long time, though,” Caitlin answered truthfully. “A lot of our equipment has been offline until today.”   
  
Another groan, this one slightly higher pitched, came from Avery. Her left arm suddenly had an itch, and she scratched it rapidly with her right hand until it stopped.   
  
As more time passed, Avery started to pace around the room in circles.   
  
_What is taking them so long? I want to get out of here._  
  
She felt stuck. Confined. Trapped. She did not like it one bit. Her irritated groans become more and more frequent, turning into a nearly constant whining sound. Avery could feel her pulse racing. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve said the hair on the back of her neck was actually standing up. She kept looking back and forth between the walls and the windows, and eventually looked right past her two companions standing there to the open hallway behind them.   
  
Beads of sweat began to form on her brow. Her breathing became rapid as an overwhelming itch began to spread from her left forearm across her entire body.   
  
“Cait…Caitlin! Cisco!” Avery cried out in fear.   
  
_What’s happening?!_  
  
Her vision went black.   
  


  
Distant sounds. Voices. Enemies? Friends? Familiar. Friends.   
Smells. Sweat. Metal. Copper? Blood. My blood. Attacked. Someone else? Myself.   
  
_Wh-what is going on?_  
  
The surface she was laying on felt cold, but it wasn’t metal. It was concrete. Her eyelids fluttered open in the dimly lit room. She was on her side, facing a wide window that had two shadows on the other side of it.   
  
“Avery? Avery, are you ok?”   
  
That voice was a friend.   
  
_Caitlin Snow._  
  
Avery suddenly bolted upright with a yelp, her gaze shifting around the room wildly. The panic she had felt before came rushing back with a hellish fury, but was immediately replaced with exhaustion. Avery looked down at her arms and was shocked to see her green half-sleeve shirt was sheened with sweat.   
  
“Avery?”   
  
Caitlin’s voice was much more urgent that time. Avery looked up at the window and recognized the former shadows as her two friends.   
  
“Cait, what…what happened?”   
  
She watched them exchange a worried look, which only brought a sinking feeling to her gut. Her nose wrinkled back as a scent caught her attention, and Avery looked down to see her left forearm had four open gashes that were bleeding onto the floor.   
  
“Caitlin, what the hell!” she exclaimed, quickly rolling up to stand on two feet as she cradled her injured arm.   
  
Or so she thought. Avery had no balance and stumbled forward towards the window. Two strong hands on her arms stopped her from falling completely.   
  
“Whoa there! Easy now, wolf girl,” Cisco chuckled.   
  
Avery steadied herself in his grasp before shooting him an incredulous look.   
  
“ _Wolf_ girl?” she enunciated.   
  
Caitlin came in and stood next to Cisco, turning the tablet in her hand so that the screen was facing Avery. It was a camera recording. Avery watched with shock as the video showed herself changing into Ruthie mere seconds after she called out to her friends from inside the room.   
  
“What the hell,” Avery exhaled breathlessly.   
  
She looked up at her friends.   
  
“How is this possible?”   
  
“We’re not entirely sure, but Cisco managed to find the video footage of when you and Ruthie disappeared from the zoo,” Caitlin shared as she quickly scrolled through the tablet before turning it back around. “It doesn’t give us answers, but it gives us a place to start hypothesizing.”   
  
Avery turned her gaze back to the screen. She recognized herself kneeling down by the fence while Ruthie lay relaxing on the other side. None of her packmates could be seen from the camera angle. A few seconds into the footage, Avery gasped. As the wave of orange light went over them, her and Ruthie both become luminescent spheres that merged with each other, and as the wave disappeared, the light on the spheres vanished to show Ruthie standing on the other side of the fence where Avery had been kneeling. She herself was nowhere to be seen.   
  
Caitlin pulled the tablet back to her chest, but Avery didn’t move. Her mind was still trying to make sense of what her eyes had just seen.   
  
“Come on. I’ll get you stitched up while Cisco tells you our plan,” Caitlin said as she reached out for Avery’s uninjured arm.   
  
Avery followed them with a nod, but she was barely listening as Cisco started rambling on about anxiety and triggers and whatever other factors he had been monitoring. She didn’t even notice when Caitlin started sewing up the gashes in her forearm. It wasn’t until she heard something about two conscious minds that she started paying attention.   
  
“You’re saying you can find a way to merge my mind with Ruthie’s?” she asked.   
  
Caitlin and Cisco both flinched.   
  
“Have you actually been listening that whole time?” Cisco asked.   
  
“No. Only what you just said.”   
  
“Alright, well I know you don’t particularly care for all the science lingo like us nerds do, so if Caitlin has a simpler way of explaining things…”   
  
Caitlin chuckled. “It’s not hard Cisco. We just need to find a way to help Avery and Ruthie become aware of each other so that Avery can control when and where she shapeshifts.”   
  
“Yea, wouldn’t want you unleashing that she-wolf wrath on Central City again.”   
  
Cisco clapped his hands together, startling both the girls.   
  
“I got it,” he declared with excitement. “Wolfwrath. That’s your new name. Oh, I am the master.”  
  
Avery’s tired mind was barely able to sort through the whirlwind of emotions running wild in her head and she wanted to snap at Cisco, but instead found herself laughing.   
  
“Wolfwrath? Really, Cisco?”   
  
“It’s a good name and I’m not changing it,” he stated stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest.   
  
Avery pondered it for a moment.   
  
“It…does have a nice ring to it,” she admitted with a chuckle.   
  
Cisco pointed two finger-guns at them as he gave her a wink, causing both Caitlin and Avery to laugh.   
  
“Alright. Wolfwrath it is.”


End file.
